Chapter 648

Chapter 648: The Gods Are dead?

The captain’s cabin was very quiet. The faint sound of waves from outside came in, fine and gentle, and only made the stillness in the room stand out more. After quite a while, Goathead finally let out a sigh and said: “Ah, that sounds very good.”

Duncan raised his eyebrow and said: “I thought you would ask a few more questions. Aren’t you curious where exactly I took Atlantis? Aren’t you curious about all my secrets?”

Goathead answered bluntly: “Curious. But both reason and instinct tell me it is better not to pry into too many things people call ‘secrets’, especially not into what happens when you leave this ship. You are the captain of the Vanished. Knowing that is enough for me. As for everything else… the less I know, the better.”

“Instinct, hm?” Duncan spoke thoughtfully. He looked at the pitch-black wooden carving of Goathead in front of him and suddenly asked: “Did that instinct tell you what would happen if I were no longer the captain of the Vanished, or if you learned too many of my ‘secrets’?”

Goathead fell silent for a moment. After nearly a full minute, he finally broke the silence and said: “I only know that whenever I have the idea of Boundary Crossing, I see an endless starry sky—and under the light of those stars, the Vanished no longer exists.”

Duncan slowly furrowed his brow. After a brief moment of thought, he shook his head and set the tangle of ideas aside for now. He said: “Atlantis is now staying in a safe place in a special state. You don’t need to worry.”

Goathead spoke softly: “Then that’s good.” He did not ask anything more.

After a few seconds of quiet, Duncan suddenly asked: “But there is still one question—what should I call you? Saslokar? Goathead? Or First Mate?”

Goathead thought for a moment. His tone even sounded a little awkward as he said: “…Let’s stick with the old way of calling me. First Mate or Goathead is fine. The name Saslokar… feels strangely unfamiliar. Thinking back now, it feels so distant that it doesn’t even seem like it was my own name.”

Duncan looked a little surprised and said: “But you agreed quite quickly when I first called you that.”

Goathead’s tone grew even stranger as he said: “…The mood at the time had already gone that way. It would have felt wrong if I hadn’t agreed…”

Duncan: “…”

He gave the pitch-black wooden carving on the table a strange look for a moment, then finally could not hold back his curiosity and said: “I’m very curious about what state you are actually in now—or rather… how you understand yourself. At the moment of the ‘world collision’, you could feel your change. At that time you seemed to have completely returned to your state as the King of Dreams, but it only lasted for a short while.”

Noticing the serious look on the captain’s face, Goathead finally started to think seriously. After a long while, he shook his head, not entirely sure, and said: “To be honest, I’m still somewhat confused even now. I could feel that the part of my memories that belonged to ‘Saslokar’ had awakened within my mind. But I could also clearly feel… he was not entirely me, and I was not entirely him.”

He went on: “But just as you said, when I saw Little Sapling… I changed a little. Perhaps it was the influence of my mythic form. Or perhaps Little Sapling had left such a deep mark in my memories that I… ‘returned’ to the state in those memories. For one brief moment, I even thought… that time had really flowed backward.”

He stopped, as if quietly recalling the strange feeling of that moment, recalling how something deep in his memory gradually revived and how another ‘personality’ awakened in his consciousness. But in the end, he slowly shook his head.

“But it lasted only a very short time. As the sunlight rose and the dream ended, I returned to this state,” Goathead said. “It seems that the symbiotic pact with the Vanished has permanently changed some part of my nature—and to be honest, I actually prefer being like this now.”

“Is that so?” Duncan said, once again thoughtful. “So you are now both Saslokar and not entirely him. That sounds more like a completely new individual reassembled from fragments of the Elder Gods… but if you feel this is good, then there is no problem.”

“Nothing wrong with it at all,” Goathead said in a carefree tone. “Some things… once they are past, they truly are hard to bring back. We all have to look forward. No matter how much the Great Annihilation took away, the fact now is that we are living in the Deep Sea era—so let Saslokar stay in legend.”

“…You have changed after all. In the past, you could hardly say something so reasonable so cleanly,” Duncan said as he gave Goathead a subtle look. He rubbed his chin and added: “But you reminded me. I just happen to have a question for you.”

Goathead’s tone immediately grew serious again as he said: “Please, ask.”

Duncan asked: “Saslokar died. He died long ago—do you still remember that sentence?”

Goathead thought for a moment, then gave a firm answer: “…I remember. When several parts of my memories were recovering and rearranging, that sentence kept echoing in my consciousness. It seemed to be a very strong kind of… ‘self-awareness’.”

“That’s right,” Duncan said with a nod. “Saslokar ‘died’ when the Great Annihilation happened. That is a ‘fact’ deeply imprinted in your memories, and even in the subconscious racial memory of the Elves. But according to the records in The Blasphemous Tome, during the second Long Night after the Great Annihilation, the ‘King of Dreams’ tried to create the world again and was ‘torn into pieces’ when the Genesis Protocol failed. The keel of the Vanished, the ‘Dream-Skull’ in the hands of the Annihilators, and you yourself are all evidence of that record.

“And we can be basically certain that the ‘King of Dreams’ recorded in The Blasphemous Tome was the same Saslokar who had already died during the Great Annihilation. How did an Elder God who had already died when the Great Annihilation occurred carry out a ‘Genesis Protocol’ during the second Long Night? Another similar contradictory record is Tarrigan, the ‘Everburning Ember’ worshiped by the Flamebearers.”

Duncan paused, picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip. Then he adjusted his posture in the chair. With an even more serious expression, he continued: “Tarrigan was another ‘god’ who died when the Great Annihilation occurred. He was the patron of Senkin. According to the reports from Vanna and the records on that ‘Chronicle Pillar’, his death—or rather, his ‘fall’—was also an indisputable fact. But if he truly died when the Great Annihilation happened… then what is the ‘Tarrigan’ currently worshiped by the Flamebearers on the Boundless Sea? Who exactly is the ‘Everburning Ember’, one of the Four Gods?”

There was a faint creak from between Goathead’s neck and base. He swayed his head from side to side, and after quite a while finally said with feeling: “That sounds a bit horrifying.”

Duncan looked at the fellow quietly and said: “Don’t talk like it has nothing to do with you. You are one of the ‘gods’ involved.”

“I don’t remember,” Goathead replied with remarkable candor. “I’ve told you before, I only recalled some vague fragments of memory, and they all focused on the time before the Great Annihilation. As for what happened after that… I truly don’t know.”

Duncan furrowed his brow deeply and asked: “You have absolutely no impression of the second Long Night, or of your experience with the Genesis Protocol during that Long Night?”

Goathead thought very hard, then shook his head helplessly and said: “If I could remember even a little, I wouldn’t be completely blank like this…”

Duncan ignored his nonsense. He simply frowned and kept thinking. After a long time he slowly said: “If that’s the case, then I do have some guesses.”

Goathead asked at once: “You have a guess?”

“I think we shouldn’t simply apply the mortal state of life and death to a deity,” Duncan thought for a moment and said with a serious face. “Let’s use you as an example—do you think you are alive right now?”

Goathead froze for a moment. After thinking, he answered hesitantly: “I think… you could say I’m alive. Aren’t I living just fine right now?”

“By ‘living just fine’, do you mean your spine is soaking in Subspace, one head has fallen into the hands of the Annihilators, and there are probably even more heads still drifting in the cracks of the world?” Duncan asked.

Goathead’s neck gave a sharp crack, and he immediately cried out: “Please don’t describe it in such a terrifying way! Why do I feel my hair standing on end when I hear that…”

“But that is exactly your current state—you have not only already died, you could even say… you died without much peace,” Duncan said. He also felt the topic was a bit eerie, but since he had already started, he could only force his face to stay serious and continue. “And I suspect the condition of the other ‘deities’ is probably not very different from yours.”

Goathead fell silent, as if caught in horror.

After briefly organizing his words, Duncan continued: “The Crawling King, lord of the Abyssal Deep. According to The Blasphemous Tome, He was the creator during the third Long Night. His current state is ‘having lost his sanity, stuck in the rift between the Abyssal Deep Sea, and Subspace, unable to move, constantly producing countless Abyssal demons and constantly devouring them’.”

“In the Sacred Tome of the Flamebearers, Tarrigan is described as a giant who guards the Primordial Flame, and that giant’s own body is also wrapped in undying fire that burns his flesh forever.”

“As for the Black Sun, I have seen Him,” Duncan said. “He is scorched by his own corona, his mind already shattered, and now he only longs to go out…”

“The storm goddess and the god of wisdom… I don’t know their exact state,” he added. “But I suspect it’s similar.

“Stripped of all mythic halos, just from my own ‘common sense’ and ‘subjective impression’, none of these situations is normal.”

Duncan said this and spread his hands, giving his final conclusion: “The gods are dead—it’s just that their ‘death’ may be very long, or very peculiar. They do not ‘operate’ according to the ‘life and death’ that mortals understand. Some ‘state’ they remain in after death, or some ‘residue’, can still affect this world, or rather… affect these ‘embers’ that were burned to ashes after the Great Annihilation. This is the true face of the Deep Sea era.”

When Duncan’s words fell, the captain’s cabin fell into silence.

After who knew how long, Goathead’s voice finally broke the silence: “…The way you describe it… is disturbing. This time I really do feel my hair standing on end.”

Duncan thought for a moment and sighed softly: “…Maybe I really should use a gentler way to describe it. It does sound a bit eerie like this.”

“No, what I mean is, the back of my neck actually feels a bit itchy right now… would you scratch it for me?” Goathead said.

Duncan: “…”